In the past, wood was one of the most important building materials in the Netherlands. Wood from the past is preserved in the soil archive (archaeological and natural sites), under water (ships), in the built environment (buildings), and in objects (art and furniture). Its patterns of annually varying ring widths can be read as accurate chronological records of biological, geological and climate processes in the past and are an important source of information about our former dealings with this material. Using tree-ring patterns, we can determine the exact year that trees were cut down, the region and type of forest or woodland where the trees grew, the forest management and harvesting selections practiced at the time, the final geographical distribution of timber from single ‘shipments’ (trade and recycling), and aspects of the hydrology and weather conditions during the life span of the trees. Tree-ring patterns also tell us how individual trees were sectioned and their segments were put to use. Moreover, measurements of ring patterns are the building blocks of the reference chronologies used for dendrochronological dating.
Dendrochronological data are therefore an essential and unique source of information about chronology, the social economy, cultural landscape, climate, forest management and wood technology. In order to study these topics, we need to combine existing dendrochronological data and knowledge from archaeology, architectural history, art history and natural-historical research. This combination is made possible by the DCCD, which is an accessible Trusted Digital Repository of cultural and natural-historical dendrochronological data for the Low Countries, designed with the specific purpose of developing and refining historical knowledge using information in and inferred from these data.
The DCCD combines all separate existing tree-ring archives on archaeology, the natural and cultural landscape, architectural history and art history in the Low Countries, based on the principle of do ut des (‘I give that you may give’).
It contains dendrochronological measurement series and their descriptive and interpretative metadata, conforming to international digital archiving standards that are developed within the project. Once the DCCD is set up, the participants use it to store newly generated data. The DCCD is linked to, and able to frequently harvest, relevant tree-ring archives abroad and digital archives in the Netherlands containing related cultural and natural data. Regarding the management and publication of government-funded research, the DCCD is an answer to an (inter)national lack of provisions for digital data storage and accessibility in cultural dendrochronology.
The proposed repository is DANS-proof. When the project is finished, the DCCD contains 30,000 measurement series and metadata from over 20,000 trees that grew between 6000 BC and present, with the emphasis on the past 2,000 years. |
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